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Thursday, January 21, 2016

The Care and Feeding of a Reader Fun Group

Hey
GLIAS friends,

I’m
here to talk about a no-longer new concept writers are using to help promote
their books in this day of so much new material for readers to choose from. “Street
Teams” are dedicated groups of readers and writers who form a club of sorts
centering around one author and her books. These teams take lots of different
forms:review crews where the members’
only tasks are to review the author’s books; physically mobilized teams who go
out and put bookmarks in books on the shelves and talk to book store owners,
librarians, and other readers; social groups who only meet online and chat;
combinations of the above.

I
have very recently taken the plunge to start a Reader Fun Group. (Triple L –
Lizbeth’s Loyal Legions.) In the last ten days I’ve gathered nearly 50 readers
to join my Facebook group and they’re starting to help me share announcement
posts on FB and Twitter. Soon they’ll write some reviews for my newest release.

I’m
super excited about trying this, and I love all the members of the group—we’re
beginning to share pictures from our home lives so we get to know about pets
and hobbies and other favorite authors—among other things. I don’t know how
long everyone’s fresh excitement will last, but I hope we can continue having
fun and create some really interesting promo moments!

I’d
like to have your take on all of this. Are you familiar with the street team
conept? Does anyone here belong to one? (I know some of my Triple L’s frequent
GLIAS!) Do you have a great time on the team, or do you feel pressured to over-promote
for your authors? What kind of perks
have you gotten for being a team member? What’s your biggest motivation for
joining?

I
know I’m babbling questions, but this is a big deal to authors. We’d really
like to give our readers what they want, and with so many of us out there
handing out everything from mints to hand sanitizer, it’s important for us to
know what YOU want from us!

I
have a choice of any of my currently available books in e-format for a
commenter today. I’d love to have your thoughts on street teams and promo in
general.

Also—I’m
super excited about my new release just around the corner. Don’t forget to go
and pre-order “The Bride Wore Starlight” from any of your favorite retailers.

Finally—if
you’re interested in MY fun team The Triple L’s – click HERE for the FB link. Come on
over and ask to join! But only if you want to have fun, ( and like my work, and have a little time to help us promo now and then)!

3 comments:

As you know, I'm on your street team, and this is my 4th one! I didn't even know what a street team was until I was asked to join one last year! They've all been different. For the first one, we were given a manuscript of the book with the caveat that we would publish reviews on Amazon and Goodreads on release day. Then we were asked to promote as much as we could, and we earned points. I ended up with the most points, and won a $50 Amazon gift card! The other street teams were not as formal, but in all 3 of them I received signed print copies of the books, and even some swag (a mug), but the books were the reason behind my joining, as well as the chance to promote authors and books that I love!